“If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice.”

“If the empire had been afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an unsuccessful war; if the Tiber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the divine justice.”

“Edward Gibbon, in his classic work on the fall of the Roman Empire, describes the Roman era's declension as a place where "bizarreness masqueraded as creativity.”

“All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.”

“I was never less alone than when by myself.”

“Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery.”

“The courage of a soldier is found to be the cheapest and most common quality of human nature.”

“History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.”

“Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book.”

“Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.”

“The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.”

“I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect.”